FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT AUNG SAN SUU KYI - PAGE 3

A UN envoy arrived in Myanmar on Friday and said he would press for the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is in detention after a violent clash that the United States said may have been instigated by the government. Arriving on a previously scheduled visit, the envoy, Razali Ismail, said he hoped to be allowed to see Suu Kyi as well as top officials. She has been held at a secret location since being seized last week.

U.S. diplomats who visited the site of political clashes in Myanmar saw bloody clothes and homemade weapons, suggesting far more people may have been killed than the four reported by the military junta, a U.S. Embassy official said Thursday. The official said evidence at the site also indicated the fighting in northern Myanmar, which broke out around democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade as she toured the region last Friday, was orchestrated by the government. The junta detained her and has not disclosed her whereabouts.

The United States said Tuesday it was seeking ways to increase pressure on Myanmar after the arrest of more than 200 opposition activists in the last few days. Washington maintains strict sanctions on the southeast Asian state and has urged other regional states to follow suit, although they have been reluctant to do so. State Department spokesman James Rubin condemned calls in the military government's media for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be deported for destabilizing Myanmar.

BERN (Reuters) - Switzerland is lifting sanctions against Myanmar except for military weapons that could be used against people in acts of repression, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, speaking alongside opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, told a news conference in the Swiss capital Bern: "Switzerland is lifting sanctions against Myanmar except for an embargo on military equipment and goods that could be used for purpose of repression.

The British husband of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is suffering from prostate cancer and wants a visa to visit his wife, an associate of Suu Kyi said Wednesday. The military government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, has not granted Michael Aris a visa in three years. His wife, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote democracy, has not left the country for fear of not being allowed back in. News that Aris, a scholar specializing in Tibet, has prostate cancer has been circulating in Yangon for several weeks, but Suu Kyi had sought to keep the matter private.

Myanmar's military junta released at least 19 political prisoners Friday, including members of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party who were among thousands of inmates whose detentions were ruled improper. Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, remained under house arrest. The prisoners included at least three senior members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party and prominent 72-year-old journalist Win Tin, said Bo Kyi, who runs an aid group for political prisoners in neighboring Thailand.

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi refused to be silenced Saturday, driving past police barricades to seek out supporters blocked from her home. Police erected barricades outside her lakeside compound in Rangoon 10 minutes after the customary starting time of her weekly pro-democracy speeches. Soon after, Suu Kyi and the vice chairmen of her political party got into a white sedan and drove to a hotel where more than 100 people had gathered. "Long live Aung San Suu Kyi," her supporters shouted, running toward her car. Military intelligence agents jumped out of a car that was following Suu Kyi's sedan and began taking pictures.

YANGON, April 1 (Reuters) - Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi won a seat in the country's lower house of parliament on Sunday after defeating her two rival candidates in a by-election in her constituency, the main opposition party said. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party announced at its headquarters that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi had won in Kawhmu, south of the commercial capital Yangon. "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has won. The NLD candidate has taken the Kawhmu constituency," an NLD official announced to cheers from hundreds of supporters, referring to Suu Kyi by her honorific title.

Judging the initial results to be "somewhat promising," the Clinton administration will take a conciliatory approach toward the Burmese military junta in an effort to encourage improvements in its human rights record, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Thursday. A recent high-level policy review recommended a strategy of trying to engage rather than isolate the government of Burma, one of the most repressive in the world. Earlier this month, Thomas Hubbard, a deputy assistant secretary of state for Asia, met with Burmese military leaders in the capital of Rangoon.